He tried to admire the dawn as they left Cloudhaven. The mist pooled like water amid the trees below, tintedgolden by the rising sun. But it was hard to keep his mind off his troubles. Though he understood why it was so difficult for his friends to trust each other, he didn’t have time for them to slowly come around. Things were far too urgent for that. He leaned into Rayna’s comforting warmth, closing his eyes and trying to convince himself all would be well as her wings beat beneath him and the miles stretched out below.
But when Holbard eventually came into sight, Anders forgot all his worries about his friends.
The city was a scene of devastation.
The great outer walls were crumbling, the stones spilling onto the ground. Huge swaths of buildings had simply been flattened when the earth had shaken beneath them, especially near the Wily Wolf tavern, where the Snowstone had exploded, and around the huge cracks that had opened up in the ground as the lava pulled by the Sun Scepter had fought to free itself.
The wreckage of ships floated in the harbor, and small fires still burned in shops and homes and warehouses. The north and northeast gates in the city walls had collapsed completely, but lines of people streamed out of the west and northwest gates, carrying what they could in their arms.
The dragons kept their distance, circling down toland well to the west of the city, where they had before. Everyone looked grim as Rayna and Theo shifted back to human shape, and they worked together to hide the harnesses in the bushes.
But even in the middle of his horror, Anders’s stomach still managed to rumble, protesting its lack of breakfast. One more small problem to add to his big ones. It was going to be a long walk to the city, but there was nothing for it except to get moving.
They pushed through the tide of people streaming along the road. Up close the refugees were ragged and covered in dust, and Anders could see the shock in their dirty faces, eyes fixed straight ahead, gazes set on nothing in particular.
The children passed through the west gate, walking past the crumbled, ruined buildings lining Ulfarstrat toward Ulfar Academy. The great street itself was mostly clear, and they were able to dodge debris as they made their way along it.
“We can make it the rest of the way,” said Lisabet. “You should get moving.”
Though none of them much liked the idea, they had decided to split up, with Lisabet and Mikkel to explore the ruins of Ulfar for what they could find of the library, and Anders and Rayna to search for food and supplies forthe group. They would meet at noon at the west gate or, if any of them were held up, that night where they had hidden the harnesses.
“If we’re later than that,” said Rayna grimly, “then you’ll know we’re in trouble.”
It was a strange, scary experience, making their way through the streets of Holbard. As Anders and Rayna climbed over a big chunk of rubble, he realized that just now, seeing the city like this reminded him of his first time in the Ulfar uniform. He had gazed in the mirror and seen his face looking back out of somebody else’s body, his hair cut short, his uniform too different from his street clothes. Only his eyes had seemed really the same. The rest had been unrecognizable.
Among the ruins he could see familiar glimpses of a shop sign here, the brightly painted wall of a house there, crumbled into rubble.
“We did this,” he said quietly to his sister.
She looked across at him. “We didn’t mean to,” she replied.
But the defiance in her tone was mingled with something else that told him she was feeling the same way he was.
“We were trying to stop them killing the dragons,” Rayna said. “And we did.”
As if her words had summoned one of those very dragons, a shadow passed over them and glided on, seeming to jump this way and that as the ground beneath it rose and fell. It was a huge, dark-red dragon, at least fifty feet long. A member of the Dragonmeet, Anders was almost sure.
In the past, there had sometimes been rumors of dragons over Holbard, whispers or scary stories, and in his time at Ulfar he’d seen a dragon spy transform and flee for her life, but he’d never seen a dragon simply brazenly fly over the city in the middle of the day.
As it wheeled back in their direction once more, he and Rayna ducked into the shadow of someone’s house. Broken beams stuck out of it like fingers reaching for the sky, and the twins’ feet were planted firmly on a great spill of dirt and grass where the rooftop meadow above them had tumbled to the ground.
When the shadow moved on, Rayna shifted, ready to step back out into the street, but some instinct made Anders grab her and hold her still. A few moments later a pair of wolves came running past, loping down the street, dodging the debris. One slowed to a trot, then stopped completely. As its companion wheeled around to check on it, the first wolf lifted its head, sniffing the wind.
Panic jolted through Anders. He had been riding adragon just an hour before. The wolf would smell the dragon on him.
Then a man rose from the shadows. He drew his arm back and let loose a rock, sending it sailing straight at the wolves.
It struck one of them squarely on the haunches, and the wolf skipped away with an angry yelp. But though it snarled at the man and its companion growled, the two of them turned to lope away.
The man spotted Anders and Rayna where they were huddled against the side of the house. Rayna had her mouth open, and Anders was simply staring. All their lives, the Wolf Guard had patrolled Holbard, had protected its citizens and enforced the law.Everybodydid what a wolf asked them to do. Anders couldn’t believe he’d just seen someone throw a rock at one.
“They did this,” the man said, pointing after the wolves, his voice quivering with anger. “Them and the dragons. The elementals did this to Holbard. What do they think this place is? Somewhere to play their games? Did they think of us at all? You two should get back to your parents. It’s not safe.”
Anders tried to speak, but he couldn’t make his mouth work. Rayna grabbed ahold of his hand.
“We will,” she promised, already starting to tug himaway. But Anders couldn’t shake the man’s words.
Did they think of us at all?he had said.
